The first thing to do is to buy your replacement hard drive. The PS4 uses a 2.5-inch SATA hard drive, the kind generally used in laptops or super-slim external drives rather than desktop computers.

It also needs to be under 9.5mm tall thanks to the size of the caddy that lives inside the PS4, which protects the drive and keeping it in place. This does prove to be a little limiting as, at the time of writing at least, lots of 2TB hard drives are a shade too chunky.

To stick on the safe side, we used a Seagate 2TB drive, which gets you 4 times the storage of the standard 500GB hard drive without busting any seams.

Step 2

Got the hard drive? The next step is to backup anything you definitely don't want to lose on your PS4. The bad news is that you can't backup game installs. Your home internet will just have to take a beating to reinstall the lot.

PS Plus subscribers don't need to worry too much about game saves either, as they will automatically be saved to the cloud. However, if you want to be extra-safe, you can back them up to a USB stick or external hard drive.

Just insert the drive, then in the PS4 menu go to settings > application saved data management > saved data in system storage. Here you'll see an option to copy your saves to a USB drive. You need to select the files game-by-game so you might want to leave out any titles you're never going to play again.

Step 3

Once you are happy you're not about to wipe out your gaming history, make sure there's no disc in the drive and turn the PS4 off completely (not standby). If your PS4 heads to standby as standard, hold down on the PS button until the power menu pops-up then select turn off PS4. Next, unplug all the PS4's cables (that's the HDMI lead and power cable most likely).

Set the PS4 on a steady surface, put a hand on the shiny top plate and move it to the side a little. This is actually a simple plastic HDD cover that's not held in place with screws but a basic clip.

Once it's free of its moorings, you'll be able to lift the cover off revealing part of the PS4's metal skeleton. There's not much damage you can do here, though, as it's more-or-less just the hard drive on show.

Step 4

You'll notice the hard drive is not yet in full view. There's one screw we need to unscrew to release the frame that holds the hard drive, using a Phillips screwdriver.

It's the largest one on the metal surface you'll see, and is inlaid with the classic PlayStation button icons.

Once the screw is removed, you can just pull the drive caddy out horizontally from the PS4's body.

Step 5

There are four more screws that hold the hard drive to the metal frame it sits in. These sit on its sides, and can be released using the same Phillips screwdriver you used to free the HDD frame.

It's just the screws we need to take off, though. You'll also notice some rubbery bits the screws rest against to absorb any shocks to the HDD: leave those there.

Step 6

Once you've freed up the hard drive, it's simply a case of putting your new one in there, then reversing the process you've just performed. So put those four screws in the sides, get the caddy back in the PS4, fasten it in place with the large screw and put the shiny plastic HDD cover back on the PS4.

If the hard drive doesn't fit, are you sure you checked it was a 9.5mm-tall or less 2.5-inch SATA drive before buying?

Should the process go as swimmingly as it went with us, you should be done within 15 minutes.

Step 7 *READ NOTES AT THE END OF THE THREAD!*

Now you have a PS4 with a completely blank memory. The console's OS is stored on the hard drive you just removed, and the one inside your console is completely blank.

You need to download the software in standalone form, using another computer. You'll find it over at the PlayStation website, and it takes up around a gigabyte at present.

If you have the space you can use the same USB stick you may have used to dump your save games onto to get it in your PS4, as this stick won't be wiped. Once you've downloaded the firmware, put it in a folder marked UPDATE that sits in a PS4 folder on the stick. Don't do this and the PS4 won't be able to find the file.

Step 8

To get up and running, you first need to put the PS4 into safe mode with the stick plugged into the console. Hold the power button down for seven seconds to do this.

You'll then be prompted to press the PS button on your PS4's gamepad, which needs to be plugged in with a cable (wireless doesn't work at this point). Then simply follow the on-screen prompts and you'll be away.

But, yes, you will need to spend the next fistful of hours reinstalling all those games. Our top tip is to make sure you allow the PS4 internet access during standby to make getting all those games back a lot snappier.

On the root of the USB Create a new folder and call it "PS4" and open the folder.Inside the newly created "PS4" folder, create another folder and name it "UPDATE". Open the folder.Inside the newly created "UPDATE" folder, move the file you downloaded above "PS4UPDATE.PUP", into the folder.